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Join this free online course to learn how you can integrate sustainability as part of your corporate strategy and positively contribute to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. You’ll learn from senior executives from a variety of companies who’ve successfully implemented sustainability practices.

Self-paced since November 20, 2019
Language: English
Subtitles (auto-generated): Deutsch, English, Français, Español

Course information

Course Summary

We are facing enormous environmental and social challenges. Solving these will require all of us to understand the issues as well as actively addressing them. Businesses have a key role to play in moving towards a sustainable future. This course explores the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and provides insights on how to integrate sustainability into business strategy and operations.

Meet practitioners who have successfully transformed and integrated sustainable business practices in large global organizations and learn about their experience. In week 1, we’ll take a look at core concepts and the foundations of building a sustainability strategy. Topics discussed include materiality, governance, investor interaction, and reporting. In week 2, we’ll focus on specific sustainability issues, such as climate challenge, supply chain, and the circular economy, and look at possible corporate actions.

You’ll learn how to make sustainability a core part of your corporate strategy and how to execute such a strategy to achieve positive impact.

Here is what some participants are saying about the course:

"Considering the key role that businesses have to play in solving the sustainability issues I would recommend this course as a must-have for everyone, regardless of the industry they belong to or the position in their respective company." read the original post

"Excellent summary of a very broad topic, explained in a simple way." Read the original post

"Please create a course on "Circular Economy and Digitalization", especially about ensuring the quality and reliability of data on the pollutants and recyclables within large networks." Read the original post

"I like the fact that this course incorporated the experience of many large industry players but wish it would also include a number of smaller companies and their experiences, as well as more female experts and an even greater degree of ethnic diversity. Read the original post

Course Characteristics

  • Starting from: October 22, 2019, 09:00 UTC. (What does this mean?)
  • Duration: The course is open for 4 weeks
  • Effort: 3-4 hours in total
  • Course assignments: There are two course assignments. The first is available from the first day of the course. The second assignment will be available when week 2 begins. Once the assignments are made available, you can take them any time until the course closes.
  • Course closure: November 20, 2019, 09:00 UTC
  • Course language: English
  • How is an openSAP course structured?

Course Content

Week 1: Sustainability and Corporate Strategy
Week 2: How to Execute an Integrated Strategy

Target Audience

  • Sustainability practitioners and stakeholders who want to learn about integrating sustainability into the strategy and operations of their company
  • Everyone interested in corporate sustainability in academia, NGOs, and consultancies

Course Requirements

  • A basic understanding of sustainability is preferred but not required.

Course contents

  • Week 1:

    Sustainability and Corporate Strategy
  • Week 2:

    How to Execute an Integrated Strategy
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Learners

Current
Today
7,607
Course End
Nov 20, 2019
3,365
Course Start
Oct 22, 2019
2,100

Rating

This course was rated with 4.39 stars in average from 423 votes.

Certificate Requirements

  • Gain a Record of Achievement by earning at least 50% of the maximum number of points from all graded assignments.
  • Gain a Confirmation of Participation by completing at least 50% of the course material.

Find out more in the certificate guidelines.

This course is offered by

Dr. Uwe G. Schulte

Dr. Uwe G. Schulte is leader of The Conference Board Global Sustainability Centre. He was Executive Director of the INSEAD Social Innovation Centre and spent most of his professional career at Unilever.

Uwe led global Unilever procurement. Other roles include head of the personal care supply chain Europe; technical director Elida; head of development and quality Gessy Lever (Brazil); head of detergent production and development (Germany) and detergent scientist (UK).

Lene Serpa

Lene Serpa heads organizational engagement, trendspotting, and reporting on sustainability for A.P. Moller-Maersk, a Copenhagen-based global transport and logistics company. She has been with Maersk for 8 years and has 20 years of experience working in the CSR and corporate sustainability field. Lene has an MSc in International Business Administration and Modern Languages from Copenhagen Business School.

Michel Washer

Michel Washer has spent most of his career at Solvay in various roles, including engineering, health, safety and environment, marketing and sales, and strategy. Since 2012, he has been deputy chief sustainability officer, in charge of Solvay’s extra-financial reporting. Michel has implemented the GRI G4 Guidelines for Solvay’s reporting, and more recently, the GRI Standards. He organized the progressive evolution of Solvay’s annual reporting to a combined report, then to an integrated report. 

Michel is a member of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Global Sustainability Standards Board. He graduated with a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Free University of Brussels.

Marc van Weede

Marc van Weede is Head of Corporate Development at Aegon Asset Management. Previously, he served as head of Aegon’s Group Business Development department, as president of the company’s life insurance joint venture in China, as head of Aegon’s Public Policy and Regulatory Office, and most recently as head of Strategy and Sustainability. 

Marc is a member of the advisory board of The Conference Board Global Sustainability Centre. He has a degree in Economics from Cambridge University and has a keen interest in forestry

Christoph Jaeckel

Christoph Jaekel joined BASF as a research scientist in 2002. During his career he has held various positions in research, marketing, business management, and strategy. For several years, Christoph worked from Florham Park, New Jersey, U.S.A. In May 2019, he assumed his current role at BASF, representing Sustainability Strategy and is located in Ludwigshafen, Germany. Christoph holds a doctorate in Chemistry from the Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universtät Bonn, Germany.

Harry Lamberton

Harry Lamberton has almost thirty years of experience in the environmental business, with the last twenty being focused on sustainability. Based in Chicago, Illinois, He leads Waste Management’s transportation, transfer, processing, recycling, and disposal services business in the states of Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas.
Harry earned a BA from the University of New Hampshire and an MBA from the Goizueta School of Business at Emory University.

Daniel Schmid

SAP’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Daniel Schmid, has been globally responsible for sustainability at SAP SE since 2014.

Daniel started his career in IT consulting and held various senior management positions within SAP Consulting. He then joined the sustainability leadership team, established in 2009 to start SAP’s sustainability journey, and lead the Sustainability Operations team.  

Daniel holds a degree in industrial engineering from the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. He is chair of the board of econsense, a forum for the sustainable development of German business.

Vincent Aloysius

Dr. Vincent Aloysius is the CEO of Ecocycle, a subsidiary of Siam City Cement Group. For most of his career, Vincent has focused on resource recovery solutions linked to sustainability efforts in the cement industry. He has led several multi-stakeholder sustainability initiatives in his current and previous roles. While attached to Holcim, Vincent was a business development consultant, supporting the start-up and development of this green business in several countries in the ASEAN region.

Scott Tew

Scott Tew is the founder of the Center for Energy Efficiency & Sustainability, which supports Ingersoll Rand's strategic brands, Trane and Thermo King, and is responsible for forward-looking sustainability initiatives aimed at transitioning to more efficient and climate-friendly solutions. He also serves as a thought leader in linking public policy, economic impacts, and a value-stream approach to sustainability.  

Scott plays key roles in the World Environment Center and the US Business Council for Sustainable Development (USBCSD). He has graduate and undergraduate degrees in Environmental Science and Ecology from Livingston University and is the recent recipient of the “Leading the Way” award in CSR by Corporate Responsibility Magazine.

Anuj Saush

Anuj Saush started his career as an environmental consultant, focusing on strategy, innovation, and compliance. He then transitioned into corporate sustainability roles, where he has experience of leading and delivering sustainability strategy, supply chain, circular economy, and social enterprise programs. Anuj’s previous roles include positions at international professional services firm PwC, and with the low-carbon energy group EDF.

Anuj has a Master’s degree in Environmental Policy from the London School of Economics and a degree in Civil Engineering from North Maharashtra University in India. He also attended the sustainability leadership program at the University of Cambridge.

Thomas Singer

Thomas Singer is a Principal Researcher in the ESG Center at The Conference Board. His research focuses on corporate social responsibility and sustainability issues. Thomas is the author of numerous publications, examining topics such as impact valuation, the circular economy, and trends in corporate sustainability disclosure.

Prior to joining The Conference Board, Thomas worked with Blu Skye Sustainability Consulting and SustainAbility, helping clients embed sustainability into their core business.

Thomas has an MSc in Social Business from the London School of Economics and a BA from Tufts University.

Dr. Marcia Balisciano

Márcia Balisciano leads corporate responsibility at RELX, a global provider of information and analytics focused on science and health, risk and business. She is a member of the board of the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens and the United Nations Global Compact UK and is chair of the Conference Board’s European Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Council. Márcia has an MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago and a PhD in Economic History from the London School of Economics.  She was named Member of the British Empire (MBE) in the Queen’s 2007 Birthday Honours List.

Stephanie Chan

Stephanie Chan leads sustainability for Esquel Group, driving, coordinating, and communicating all initiatives, both internally and externally, related to the business’ environment and people strategies.

Prior to joining Esquel, Stephanie worked at Edelman, where she consulted brands on their sustainability strategy and practices, and was shortlisted by PR Week Asia as one of the top 5 Young Professionals in Asia 2015. She has also worked for the United Nations in New York.

Stephanie has a Master’s degree from Columbia University in International Affairs, and a Bachelor degree from the University of Michigan.

James Schofield

James is Vice President, External Relations Corporate for Shell International, based in the Hague. He leads several teams responsible for: Sustainability Reporting; Corporate Reputation; Crisis Management; Non-Technical Risk integration; NGO and Stakeholder Relations and Corporate Conferences.

Prior to this position, James has worked as External Relations VP for Strategy and Planning and Strategic Projects Manager in the Shell Scenarios team. Before Shell, worked as a consultant at the UN and as a business news reporter for the BBC in Moscow. He has a Master's degree from the Institute of Political Science in Paris and a law degree from the University of Manchester. 

Anke Schrader

Anke Schrader leads research on Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability in China at The Conference Board. She has spent 15 years in China, and is the author of numerous publications on China’s sustainable development agenda and civil society environment. 

Anke has led multi-year research partnerships with Cornell University and Indiana University, and was a guest lecturer at Cornell University’s Employment and Disability Institute. She is also Chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in China’s Business Sustainability Committee.